will the wild make the playoffs

[mudman]

from ESPN John Buccigross

The Wild missed the playoffs last year because they just couldn't generate any offense. They will need Marian Gaborik to be their star, and they will need goals from Brian Rolston. This team makes huge money and had plenty to spend to upgrade the team, but they chose to stay with their no-one-is-bigger-than-the-team philosophy, and as a result, others have passed them by. They will still be fun to watch, but the playoffs are a long shot

Hope he's wrong but I agree......

Now Dougy is all hyped up about Daniel Tjarnqvist and his offensive skills well maybe thats why his has a career -46 !!

[Jarrod32]

I said in another thread on this forum that I thought the Wild needed a good offensive defenseman to run the power play...the Wild have been brutal on the PP the last few years. A few more PP play goals gets them a few more wins (over all those ties they had last year) and a few more ties (over all those one-goal losses) and gets them in contention for the playoffs...but I'm not sure if Tjurqvist is the guy, though...Hamerlink (sp?) might have been...

[mudman]

yeah ummm....

I'm going to have to agree then disagree with you jarrod.

the PP has been horrible but I don't think it was the person running the PP, I think its the team as a whole that can't connect tape to tape, hold for to long and are much to inexperienced to handle it. JMO

They need a vet, old school vet that has ice water in his blood to settle everyone down when the score is close, they ran around too much and it costed them dearly. With the shuffle of the NHL now, well teams have really evened out and I think the wild will look like a college team amonst professionals. I hope I eat my words but thats what I see, maybe another 3-5 years but I am just to impatient I guess. Its already been 4 years and one good trip to show,

[Jarrod32]

You're certainly right about the passing...passing (or not passing) and shooting (or not shooting) at the right (or wrong) times. And you may be right about the player movement among other teams pushing the Wild further back...time will tell.

[tashit]

I agree with most of the above, but my biggest pet pieve about the Wild's power play is that they constantly dump and chase. It would be one thing if they won the race to the puck but half of the time it's shot right back down the ice. They should not have to dump and chase when they are on the power play and if they do they should win the race to the puck. They have to be able to gain and hold the zone before they can have an effective power play.